There's a Ghost in the Attic
by LeonaWriter
Summary: Martin did wish that he hadn't been quite so literal with what he'd said to Carolyn that day. But that was the truth of the matter, and while sooner or later he knew they'd find out, he'd deal with that bridge when he came to it. For now, he'd fly - and hope no one saw right through him.
1. We're all gonna crash and burn some time

**We're all gonna crash and burn some time, some of us'll just crash a bit earlier than others.**

**...  
**

Martin would later admit that it had been dark, and it had been raining during the day, and yes, yes, he really should have been more careful. And they would say back to him that 'more careful' in that instance was somewhat of an understatement. To that, Martin would only smile awkwardly, and shrug. Not really knowing what to say to that, but feeling, more or less, like 'well, there's not much we can do about that now, is there?' suited the occasion most times.

But the truth was that at the time, all he had been able to think about was how late it was, how tired he was, and how if he didn't hurry then he'd be even later home to the attic he was still living in, which would mean even less sleep until the morning, which in turn would mean that he would be falling asleep or generally looking unprofessionally tired during his interview the next day.

The interview was to be for a small airline, and they needed a pilot. The pay wouldn't be that good compared to, say, British Airways, or even EasyJet. But it would be something, and he'd be willing to do anything to be able to fulfil the dream he'd had of being a pilot ever since he'd been six.

His official papers, his license and so on, were all still back home. He really had expected to be able to get back earlier, but things had dragged on, and time had flown by the same as it always did. And here he was, racing down the motorway as fast as he could without breaking any limits. And to top it all off, his head was starting to hurt.

The car coming up from behind him did not help.

Fog lights were bad enough when some idiot left them on in the daytime and blinded you when you couldn't look away fast enough, but in the night, when your eyes were used to less light, pupils dilated to take in as much as they could in order to see... left him with spots in his eyes, to be frank.

He briefly considered leaning his head out of the window to shout at the other driver, but figured that it would be useless, and why lower yourself to their level? It'd just start a row, and make him even more irritated and put him in a bad frame of mind before the interview.

Instead, he swerved out, aiming to avoid the other car and move into one of the other lanes.

Life, as is said, never quite works out exactly the way that we intend.

All Martin saw was a flash of light - the fog lights again, was his last thought - and then, darkness.

There was more than that, of course. More that he didn't remember, or didn't want to remember. And he wouldn't. He would wake up the next morning in his own bed, in the attic, and go through his morning routines, completely passing over the fact that the car he'd been driving the night before was nowhere to be found, and neither was almost anything he'd had in the car, other than his clothes and anything he'd had on his person.

He had taken the van to the interview instead. Which wasn't very smart looking, and had an odd smell of old leather and smoke that he couldn't get rid of, but got him there on time, and that was all that really mattered.

He got the job. He came out uncertain whether to grin his face off, or smack himself over the head, because he wasn't going to get paid for it but he _got the job_. He was going to be a pilot. More than that, he was going to be a _Captain_.

When he'd parked the van outside the student housing (he was going to move out one day, he kept promising himself, one day, when he could) a girl walked past with a dog on a lead, which whined when he got too near. The girl turned to look at what had upset the thing, saw him, and smiled. He'd started to smile back, but then she faltered, and walked on, suddenly nervous.

He took out his keys, opened the door, and made his way up the stairs. No one paid him any attention. Several letters had arrived for him - bill, bill, junk mail, car tax - he'd have to declare the thing off road now, and-

For a long minute, he stopped thinking entirely.

_There was a screeching of tires, fog lights glaring and horn deafening him, metal-_

And then, it was gone, leaving him shaking, knees weak and dropping him onto his bed.

He didn't know when or even why he started crying, but he did, and he realised - if you can't bawl your eyes out at something like this, then when could you?

...

AN: Written up to help a roleplay account make sense, but I'd had the idea for... ages.


	2. Well life goes on

**Well, life goes on. And then, after that, it'll keep on going until it doesn't.**

...

The next day, he woke up without being able to remember dreaming anything. Or, for that matter, falling asleep. He dressed smartly, somehow, picked up his things, the keys of the van chiming as they went into a pocket.

He drove to Fitton airport more self-conscious than he ever had been, both of himself and of his driving, the road, the cars around him. If he'd been given the option he might have steered clear of roads, but that would have been a bad idea in the long run, he decided. He would have needed to drive again soon anyway, and aeroplanes were more dangerous to drive than cars, anyway. There were accidents every day, and it wasn't his fault.

That's what he told himself, anyway, and that was what he believed, and as far as he could tell, that was what was true, and it kept him going.

He parked the van, wincing slightly at how out of place it looked amid the planes and the shiny - or at least, somewhat newer - cars, with its 'Icarus Removals' signage and number on either side. He sighed, and wondered if he was going to have to do anything about it. Then again, maybe not.

He found his own way to the portacabin, having been shown how to get there the day before by an almost overly bright- boy? Man? He seemed to be a grown man, but the way he acted said something else. He'd seemed very happy to see Martin, anyway, which had been a pleasant change from how people usually were with him.

This time, there was someone else waiting there, and Carolyn, his new boss, had apparently not arrived yet. He looked nervously at his watch, only to find that it had stopped. He squawked, having his own suspicions about why that had happened, and instantly wished that he hadn't, and that he wasn't there, or at least wouldn't be noticed for a while.

It just so happened that the other man _didn't_ notice him, at least not yet, anyway, and that gave him the opportunity to look at him and see who he was.

The man was older than Martin by about a decade or two. He had a bit of grey in his hair, which wasn't a mess the way that Martin's would often go, and he was already wearing his uniform. Carolyn hadn't given him his yet, as, in her words, 'I don't think they have one in a size that small'. There was an air of inherent superiority and general irritation coming off of him in almost palpable waves, as he tapped his foot in a staccato beat. There was paperwork on the desk in front of him, which was going undone, pen clicking on and off and occasionally jotting something down, but not on the forms. There was a ring on his finger - married, then - and three on each of his sleeves, and each of his epaulettes.

The first officer, then. Something hard sank to the bottom of where Martin thought his stomach should be. His first officer was going to be older than he was.

Then the door was swinging open, and Arthur was making himself known to the room, saying hello to Douglas - that was his name, then - and wondering where Martin was.

Douglas wondered _who_ Martin was.

Arthur helpfully informed Douglas that Martin was the new Captain, and mum'd picked up his uniform this morning so that's why they were a bit late, but that was okay, because everyone should be here right now, right?

That was when Martin had hesitantly, said that yes, he too was in the room.

They both swung around to look at him, surprised. Douglas, he thought, more than Arthur, because it was probably more than possible for Arthur to miss out something insignificant like another person in the room, but Douglas had, after all, been in the room for quite some time. And should have noticed Martin as he came in.

Martin, morosely, started to wonder if he'd opened the door.

"Right!" said Arthur, brightly, "like I said, we're all here now, and mum's got your uniform, Martin, and so once you've got that on maybe we can get to Gerti, and you can do all the pilot things together that I'm sure you both know about, but have never done before together!"

Arthur was still beaming. Douglas was by this point sending Martin a dirty look, which Martin was rather certain had something to do with the number of stripes on his epaulettes.

Arthur had been holding something else - a hat. He handed it over, and Martin took it, gingerly, noting with butterflies in his stomach (or something close enough) the gold braiding.

This was it.

Carolyn stepped through the door with a bundle of clothes under one arm, practically shoved them at Martin - annoyed with the expense, their last Captain had at least had the decency to be at least of average height - and Martin felt something sort of click into place. By the time they were actually on board GERTI herself, he was certain.

_This_, he thought. _This was good. Maybe it doesn't make up for... everything. But it's good_.

...

AN: I already have the first (and main) part of St. Petersburg written up, but I won't be posting it here until I've gone through the rest first.


	3. I'm seeing things that aren't even there

**I'm seeing things that aren't even there, I'm touching the intangible.**

...

Martin didn't like doctors.

That isn't to say that he had always felt this way; oh no, back when he was alive he'd liked them well enough, and respected them, too. He still did. As long as he could do it from a distance.

Doctors, as was generally safe to assume, were good at figuring out whether or not someone was healthy, and if they weren't, then what was wrong with them.

Martin had, by now, been neither healthy - in the sense that he was not, in fact, alive - nor ill - for he had gone past the point of being able to, properly - for quite some time. He had become used to the idiosyncrasies of being a semi-solid ghost, of going through the motions of breathing when he actually didn't need to, of having breezes sometimes just waft through him instead of around him, of sometimes having to try twice to pick something up.

He could still eat, though. He'd found that out by accident. And, as he'd also realised, the eating actually helped people to think he was more 'there' than he actually was. He was certain there was a long-winded and complicated explanation for it, but he hadn't been curious enough or bored enough to look such a thing up yet.

But the core brunt of the problem was, Martin did not like doctors for the fact that, he was sure, if they took one good look at him they'd somehow be able to know instinctively - intuitively - that he was dead.

So while Martin had been trying to get the one man on the passenger list who had 'Dr.' in front of his name to come to the galley and see to the patient, he'd been trying just as hard to hide his anxiety regarding doctors of any sort.

And then. Oh, yes. And _then_-

Not a medical doctor at all. Engineering. _Civic Engineering_.

And how-

How could he have NOT noticed someone die? He'd been _right there_! And it wasn't that far away from the galley to the flight deck, for goodness' sake!

Martin let out a whining noise similar to a car tire letting out air. The doctor with a Ph.D in Civil Engineering went back to his seat - probably annoyed and likely to tell everyone back there how incompetent they all were, and have a right good laugh.

Suddenly, the smell of smoke wafted up his nostrils. It was the kind of thing that wouldn't ordinarily catch a person's attention quite the way it did Martin's just then, and not only because smoking was absolutely prohibited in aircraft, or because the person who had previously been smoking during the flight had died not too long ago. No, he could actually smell it, in a way that almost felt more real than the real world.

With a sinking feeling, he looked around. There, leaning against the drinks cabinet, was Mr. Lehman, who was looking highly amused, and very pleased with himself, for a dead man.

"Anything I can do for ya, kid?"

Martin breathed in deeply, and then let it out slowly. He didn't need to, and it made him cough from the smoke, which hadn't been the intention at all.

"Well for one thing," he said quietly, "you could stop that. I- it might not burn the plane down any more, but it's certainly distracting _me_."

"Oh yeah? And why d'you think I'm going to be listening to _you_?"

Martin deflated, and then he drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't very intimidating at the best of times, and now, when he was hurried from time (Douglas was expecting him back in the flight deck any moment now) and trying not to raise his voice too much (Douglas would wonder who he was talking to, when no one was actually there) was not, under any circumstances, the best of times.

"Because," he said, "because for one thing, if that smoke ends up in there, and I smell it, then I'm probably going to think that there is, yet again, something wrong with the aircraft, which is not an unheard of thing. For another thing, I don't think you have any room to call me that. I am the_Captain_, and this is my plane, and you know what? I've been like," and he gestured to the general vicinity of himself, "this, for far longer as well. So- so just- don't."

Mr. Lehman just rolled his eyes, and continued smoking. Which, quite frankly, annoyed Martin to the point of plucking the cigarette out of the dead man's hand and dropped it unceremoniously into the sink, letting the ghostly fire sizzle out. Mr. Lehman stared, then, and continued staring as Martin went back into the flight deck to his seat.

...

AN: At first, I was thinking of having a more confrontational scene. But then I didn't know how to start it, and after that the idea about doctors making Martin nervous now struck me, and I realised - what I'd been thinking of wouldn't have been _Martin_.


	4. It's moments like these

It's moments like these, I wish I could sink into the ground, let the Earth swallow me up.

...

_Fitton_

Being drunk for a ghost was supposed to be technically impossible, for two main reasons. The first being that the person was dead, and therefore should not be able to drink a drop, the second being that if an intangible being such as a ghost did, in fact, try to drink, then all that should really happen is that the liquid would end up going right through them and hit the floor, much to their embarrassment and the annoyance of the cleaning staff of wherever they happened to be.

Martin, however, hardly conformed to the normal for ghostly behaviour. He was generally somewhat solid, which certainly helped with flying aeroplanes, and could actually eat and drink. The mechanics of this were somewhat similar to the idea of vanishing something. The matter can't simply cease to be, but it has nowhere to go. Therefore, it becomes, in essence, everything.

In Martin's case, the thing that is being vanished (here, the food, or rather at this instance, the alcohol) does not become nothing, but rather, becomes _Martin_.

Martin himself does not truly care about these details, but the fact that they affect him doesn't stop or go away. Like, for instance, how getting drunk happens so much faster. Due to the lack of blood.

It doesn't take long for him to realise that while getting drunk again could possibly be fun, it really, really shouldn't be right before a flight.

This is his third try at grabbing that coffee mug, and his hand is still going through it, and getting a slightly warm, buzzed feeling for his pains.

He tries again, and the hot liquid sploshes out of the mug when the mug moves an inch away from his hand.

Several minutes later, he's leaning on one of the seats, and his hand starts to sink through the fabric. At least this time he can pretend he simply slipped.

Some time after that and in the flight deck with Douglas and Arthur, he's glad Douglas is keeping his eyes in front of him, because he just gestured about something or other, and realised that he'd gone sort of see-through.

Yes, he thinks later, nursing the ghostly equivalent of a hangover, definitely not before a flight next time.

Preferably, not when people are around, either.

...

_Helsinki_

Kieran hadn't known what he'd been doing. Then again, neither had Martin, and that was even worse. Douglas, of course, was completely clueless for once, a fact that had caused him to be rather quiet for some time afterwards.

It had started when Kieran had begun to explain exactly what he thought of Martin, and Martin's 'life'. At first there was confusion. He'd been so interested and keen before, so why change his mind? What had changed? There must have been something, and it _wasn't fair_.

That was the first thought that stuck out in his mind, and the one that started off a sort of buzzing in his ears. It was low at first, quiet, but as he got angrier, the buzzing got louder.

He didn't realise that with every mean word the eleven year old boy was saying, the atmosphere in the closed café became more and more oppressive, with a tension you could cut through, and the temperature had dropped by one or two degrees.

If he _had_ known, the very fact that he could do such things at all would probably have been enough of a shock to the system that the effects of his anger and embarrassment would have come to an abrupt end. But he didn't.

Stacked up cups began to rattle, but because they were somewhere near Arthur, no one paid them any attention, and besides, everyone who wasn't Martin or Kieran were currently focusing, with morbid curiosity, on Martin and Kieran. Little things like that weren't so important next to such a sight.

Then Kieran made it plan what he thought, and said outright that he didn't even think that Martin was a proper captain, and Martin _snapped_.

The lights flickered, and they put it down to faulty wiring.

It was only supposed to be a cuff around the ear – it certainly hadn't thrown him across the room, or even onto the floor, but from the look of surprise on Kieran's face it looked like he had caused a little more than a light sting.

It certainly wasn't anything that would hold Kieran back for long, though, as moments later the atmosphere of dread had turned into uneasiness for both of the pilots when Kieran _smiled_.

Martin was too busy realising what he'd just done and being both horrified and terrified that someone would put two and two together and _understand_, to move out of the way. It was a good thing the adrenaline rush hadn't yet passed, because if it had, the inattention might have caused Kieran's blows to fall on thin air.

As it was, Martin was finding that it was no fun at all being beaten up by an eleven year old child, especially when he knew damn well that he could just sink through the floor or disappear at will, but since Douglas was watching – and trying, yet failing, to perform damage control – and Arthur was _right there_, and Carolyn and the others were coming in, he couldn't, and had to just _endure_ it.

There were, he decided, times like these when he hated his life, or death, or whatever you wanted to call it.

He wondered if Kieran would have been impressed even if he'd gone see-through. Probably not.

...

AN: I was originally going to do a whole load more moments from the series that were changed with Martin becoming a ghost. But then the second one took ages to get out of my head, and there may or may not be something planned for before Gdansk, I'm not sure. I might reschedule it, or I might not.

Interestingly, as the Helsinki short shows, if Martin didn't put all of his ghostly energies into being solid enough to fly a plane, he'd actually be pretty _ powerful_. But flying a plane is what he wants, and what use would he have for ~ghostly powers~ anyway?


End file.
